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Pizza: Vegan Style

After eating vegan pizza at Gratitude Cafe a few weeks ago, I finally found the secret to making vegan pizza: nutritional yeast. I think some people are hesitant to go vegan because they think they will have to give up their favorite dishes, but it seems as though there are substitutes for everything, and they are usually packed with nutrition. Don’t get me wrong – lately I have been really hankering for an egg salad sandwich. Being vegan is not easy, but it is good to know that one must not be deprived of something as delicious as pizza.

Pizza is one of my specialties, and what I love about it is that you can throw pretty much anything on it, and as long as you remember to mix the dough a couple hours before dinner time, it is pretty simple. When I was a cheese-buying omnivore, the pizza I made used almost an entire brick of cheese, which can be expensive and quite fattening. This recipe uses entirely plant-based products, so it is high in vitamins, fiber, and protein (nutritional yeast is a complete protein).

I carefully stirred the yeast into the warm water and let it rest for ten minutes. In a large bowl I combined the flour, salt, and oil. With a wooden spoon I combined the wet ingredients to the dry until combined, formed the dough into a ball, and placed it back in the bowl (slightly coating it in oil all around), covered with a tea towel. The dough must rise for at least an hour, but two hours is the most ideal.

Once the dough rose, I kneaded the dough for about five minutes, then divided it in two and rolled out each piece into the shape of my pan. This time I used two different methods to bake the pizza: a pizza stone for one pizza (to be baked in the oven), and tinfoil for the other (to be baked on the BBQ). In the past I have just put the pizzas on a cookie sheet. No matter what, I always lightly oil and flour the baking surface to avoid sticking; however, treatment of the pizza stone is different. I allowed the stone to heat up with the oven, then lightly floured it when I was ready to assemble the pizza.

To assemble the pizza, I first sauteed the onion, peppers, and garlic with a little bit of oil, then added the basil, salt, and pepper. Meanwhile, Tom BBQed the spaghetti squash in quarters until it was tender, and in a bowl I mixed the shredded carrot, spaghetti squash and nutritional yeast (this is the cheese part!). I spread the tomato sauce onto each pizza, then layered the sauteed veggies, followed by the “cheese”. I also sprinkled some more nutritional yeast to top off the pizzas, and added arugula in the last minute of baking.

Each pizza baked at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes. It was amazing to me that each pizza tasted different because of the way they were baked. Next time I will use the pizza stone on the BBQ now that I know how well the BBQ method works.

This recipe is DELICIOUS. No more will I buy fake-tasting vegan cheese now that I have discovered nutritional yeast!